The Tropical Fruit Forum

You protected it passively and it died? :O

I even had a 40w heat light in there and it died. I had the lamp high, and while the upper foliage did fine, the lower part of the grafted Thomasville must have froze. Rootstock survived, though. The rootstock was US-942.

So, to summarize:
Thomasville froze.
US-942 survived.
Madison's unlabeled citremon survived.
Prague survived.

Morton died, but I don't think it had anything to do w/ winter. It was dying in the autumn.

It was a weird oitcome to say the least.  One of my fig trees was severely damaged but my two seed grown grapefruits were unfazed other than leaf damage at 10 degrees.  My owari satsuma which has been in the ground for nearly 10 years sustained way more damage than those 2 grapefruit trees.

How big was the fig?

My neighbour wants coldhardy figs (south Germany). Anyone here sells cuttings/trees?

what zone are you in?

Quote from: Sunmicroman on June 25, 2024, 04:42:31 PM

I am trying US 812 in my yard. I planted it this year after buying it from Madison. I am hoping it is hardier than US 942 (another Sunki-trifoliate hybrid), as that had disappointing hardiness this past winter.

What is your experience with US-942 and it’s cold hardiness?

It survived 7F for me.

I had assumed the rootstock for my Thomasville (which didn’t make it) was poncirus, but after checking the tag it was US-942. The rootstock is alive and well.

I was just scrolling, thinking I was understanding citrus or whatever… and now I’m panic-reading graft combos like I’m writing a whole damn thesis. Somebody really woke up one day and went, ‘what if we cross a kumquat with a lime?’ and just… did it. You people are out here treating citrus like a damn personality trait. Absolute citrus freaks. I’m horrified. I’m obsessed. This ain’t horticulture anymore—this is a full-blown cult. We’re not getting into heaven. I’ll see you in hell 🍊🫡🔥

The really wild part is that we know poncirus was being used as a rootstock at least as early as 1178, but there isn't much evidence that anyone was trying to hybridize with it until about 1900. And even then -- mostly to breed better rootstocks.

In the end, it's all a matter of practice. I thought it was almost impossible to use Poncirus as a receptor, but out of 30 seeds, a hybrid with Meiwa pollen came out... a lot of things are a matter of statistics. With Cavendish banana, it was impossible to create seeds, and someone came up with the idea of challenging that. They pollinated 12,000 plants (2,000,000 flowers/bandanas) and got 40 seeds, and 20 embryos sprouted. 🤷🏻 So, what's pre-established can serve as a guide, but never take anything as absolute.

I thought the Australians had bred a poncirus-kumquat hybrid. I never took it as impossible, merely... difficult.

Madison are unusual among nurseries in that they are very, very reluctant to say anything about a variety unless their budwood source says the same or they've experienced it first hand themselves.

To my mind it's a plus, even if it does mean having little to no idea what on earth a bunch of their new stuff even is. Who's even heard of Sundiatgo US for example.

They are also willing to go back and interrogate the budwood source on why exactly they named it whatever they named it as.

What is the Morton US 1-3?

Quote from: bussone on May 07, 2025, 06:12:08 PM

Morton's orange parent is supposedly also 'Ruby.'

According to this source, Ruby is one parent of Morton, (page 7, second column)

https://journals.flvc.org/fshs/article/download/100828/96780

"Reciprocal crosses were made of P. trifoliata and Ruby sweet orange; 54 citrange hybrids were produced. Eleven different citranges—Norton, Morton, Sanford, Willitts, Phelps, Coleman,
Rustic, Savage, Saunders, Cunningham, and Etonia—were grown from seeds of a single fruit of P. trifoliata crossed with pollen from a single flower of Ruby sweet orange (Swingle 1913)."

C35 also has Ruby as a parent, but probably not the same Poncirus variety as it was release only 1987

https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/crc3912

In retrospect, it's kind of startling how many citranges and citrangequats/citrangedins have Ruby as a grandparent. Rusk and Willits have a fair amount of descendants. (Thomasville is a child of Willits, too)

The smell of orange blossom is "Azahar" and I mistranslated it haha! Sorry 😅🤦🏻

I was wondering what the word was supposed to be!

All I knew was hazard wasn't it.

Quote from: mikkel on May 02, 2025, 11:55:31 AM

I think it might makes sense to cross Morton with Sanford. Since both varieties share the same parentage, a direct cross could recombine the genes of Poncirus and orange, potentially resulting in favorable new combinations.
With a sufficiently large number of offspring, it might be possible to achieve a desirable mix of traits from both parents.
Sanford is zygotic and thus well-suited as the seed parent, while Morton could serve as the pollen donor.
Crossing with other citrus varieties increases the range of possible trait combinations, raising the probabilities

A recombination of F1 traits through sibling crosses could theoretically steer results more precisely in a desired direction.
But it is theory and everything is worth trying.

If Sanford is zygotic and has the same parents, why not just let it self-pollinate?

The children of the original trees were all apparently quite different. Morton got different genetics than Sanford, despite having the same parents.

Over all the crosses I have made so far, there seems to be a strong link between trifoliate leaves and cold hardiness, not 100% but probably around 90%.

That seems to be a common finding. I think kumin is seeing the same thing.

Row of Meyer x 026 showing good vigor.

Can you recap what you have going in your fields currently? I've lost track of the various combinations and generations you're working with.